Ceramic Fuel Cells agrees BlueGen deal with E.ON

Ceramic Fuel Cells (LON:CFU) , the AIM and ASX listed cleantech company, has sold three of its flagship BlueGen gas-to-electricity generators to one of the UK's leading energy companies, E.ON. One BlueGen will be installed in early 2011 at the E.ON training centre in Tipton, where the group's Property Services department trains its staff in the installation and maintenance of gas and electrical appliances. The other two BlueGen units will be installed at demonstration sites. BlueGen uses ceramic fuel cells to turn natural gas into electricity and heat for hot water. The units can generate electricity far more efficiently than the current power grid, providing significant cost savings to energy bills and large carbon savings. Each BlueGen unit can produce three times the electricity needed to power an average UK home. The UK government's feed-in tariff pays 10 pence for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated by small scale co-generation products, plus an additional 3 pence for every kilowatt hour of electricity sold back to the local power grid. BlueGen also produces enough heat to satisfy the average UK home's daily needs for hot water. Ceramic Fuel Cells said it was is continuing to make progress towards having BlueGen certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme in order to access the UK Government's feed in tariff. It added that it was working towards achieving certification as soon as practicable and would give a further update towards the end of January 2011. Click here to read a Stockopedia interview with Andrew Neilson, Group General Manager - Commercial, at Ceramic Fuel Cells. In parallel with installing three BlueGen units, Ceramic Fuel Cells and E.ON are continuing to develop fully integrated power and heating products for the UK market. In this project, integrated units are installed with appliance company Gledhill and in a test house with EA Technology. Under a product development agreement signed in 2009, Ceramic Fuel Cells and E.ON have agreed the development stages to move into production of commercial units. The partners are currently discussing the project plan details for the next phase of product development and deployment. Yesterday, Ceramic Fuel Cells reported that one of its BlueGen units was now operating at the Central Market in Adelaide, Australia. The Adelaide City Council and the South Australian Government installed the BlueGen unit together with an electric vehicle charging station in order for city shoppers to recharge their electric vehicles from low emission sources rather than carbon intensive power from the electricity grid.